I guess, then, the answer is not to read any books, not go to any movies, and not watch television.

All these things make me feel dumb, dumb, dumb every time I see what gets published, talked about, made, produced, while I can't find a publisher/director/producer, or even any gullible, high traffic bloggers.

Only one thing saves me from the feeling that I need to walk through a car wash-Hollywood or any other type-in hopes it erases the stain of having read this. And that's the knowledge that I didn't actually pay for it and put any money in the author's pocket, I got it from my library.

Otherwise, I've got nothing to be proud of.

Great Paragraphs In Literature

To paraphrase the story of the bishop and the monkey, "It's a filthy little mania, but it's mine, all mine."

--From Joshua Logan's Movie Stars, Real People, And Me

It's such a feeling that my love, I can't hide

Roger Ebert reviews the new movie Across the Universe, which tells a story of the Vietnam era set almost entirely to Beatles songs.

Yet when I say "story," don't start thinking about a lot of dialogue and plotting. Almost everything happens as an illustration to a Beatles song. The arrangements are sometimes familiar, sometimes radically altered, and the voices are all new; the actors either sing or sync, and often they find a mood in a song that we never knew was there before. When Prudence sings "I Want to Hold Your Hand," for example, I realized how wrong I was to ever think that was a happy song. It's not happy if it's a hand you are never, never, never going to hold.

The story sounds a bit like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the movie, mixed with Hair, the movie, one hopes a little bit (or a lot) more the latter than the former. I've always said the problem with Sgt. Peppers was not that making a musical out of the songs of the Beatles is an inherently bad idea.

If I start listing what the problems were with Sgt. Pepper's, we'll be here all afternoon. But Hair is a pretty great movie, even though it loses its way once or twice (including with an ending which, though heartbreaking, is staggerly unlikely))

Other reviews of Across the Universe have been pretty evenly mixed, but I still want to see it. Paul McCartney likes it, supposedly.

Somehow, this girl is my daughter

I know that comes as a surprise to many of you. Certainly it comes as a surprise to me. But just look at the facts.

(some of these come from her comments on YouTube)

Cute kid, seems healthy; sweet.
Watches Monty Python.
Egotistical enough to keep not just a blog, but a video blog.
Listens to Thomas Dolby, and thinks he's "like, GOD!!"
Musician.
"Really into retro," wishes she knew how to do the robot dance.
Uses the word "awesome!" in a sentence.

Clearly, this is some child of mine that I was previously unaware of.

History.

Hey, remember the Schiavo case? It was the case which showed that Bush conservatives only care about women when they're brain-dead and unable to speak. It was an overheated melodrama in which almost everyone involved acted badly, a real nadir in the exploitation of people's pain and suffering.

The only good thing about it was that it finally began to expose said Bush conservatives as the weasely little rationalizers they are.

All these, of course, are merely my views. I'm sure you have your own, based on your memories of that time.

Fred Thompson doesn't. The bright and shining GOP star

was asked in an interview for Bay News 9's "Political Connections" program if he thought Congress' intervention to save the life of the brain-dead woman two years ago was appropriate.

"I can't pass judgment on it. I know that good people were doing what they thought was best," Thompson said. "That's going back in history. I don't remember the details of it."

"That's going back in history."

Two years ago.

"That's going back in history."

Do we really want to elect a president with ADD?

Again?

I'm working on it.

Found via Johnny B

• 1. Go to http://www.careercruising.com/
• 2. Put in Username: nycareers, Password: landmark.
• 3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
• 4. Post the top ten results
  

1.
Special Effects Technician
(I'd probably be the one to say to Jon-Erik Hexum, "Just blanks, right?")

2.
Criminologist
(My days in a Rocky Horror Picture Show cast have come back to haunt me)

3.
Costume Designer
(Edith Head, eat your heart out)

4.
Set Designer
(Sure. Everything'll look like a Pet Shop Boys video.)

5.
Critic
(I wouldn't mind so much being a critic, if I only had a critic's darling)

6.
Comedian
("Anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Sounds like a Jewish law firm. 'Morning, Anger, Denial, Bargaining Depression and Acceptance!")

7.
Casting Director
(The only drive I have in this area is fantasizing who I'd like to see in films of my stories, y'know, if I were an internet millionaire or sumthin'.)

8.
Political Aide
(Only if Aaron Sorkin writes me)

9.
Activist
(You say you want a revolution Well, you know...Everybody Wants To Rule The World)

10.
Writer
(At least it made into the top 10...)

"swelling in the joints, and bending of the longer bones"

I'm just saying is all.


Which Horrible Affliction are you?
A Rum and Monkey disease.

There's a kind of poetry to it, really

Okay, remember that video I embedded a month or two back with the girls making a homemade video to "Bust A Move?" I occasionally get hits from the YouTube page, seeing as I'm one of like only two people to link there. For some reason.

So I thought I'd stroll by and see what kind of comments and responses they'd been attracting. That's where I found this absolute gem, by a YouTube user called "Lafondle:"

I like crazy girls, I think it is their pussies that make them act like that.

Wow!

A new venue

FYI:

I've created a new blog to write my "pharmaceutical diaries" on. The name of the new blog is pharmaceutical diaries (what a goddamn coincidence). If you care to read it, you can, but a couple of comments.

It's probably going to be a lot more personal than the posts I write for here. This blog will remain a repository for my more...aesthetic pursuits, as well as whatever I think of to say about news, pop culture, movies and/or music.

There'll probably be more posts here than there on any given day. Over there, it's going to be just one post a day (at least for the foreseeable future) but with my thoughts and feelings as unedited as I can possibly manage to get them down onto a screen.

And if that doesn't scare you away, you must be really, really stupid. Either that or you're my friend.

The first one who says "They're not mutually exclusive" is getting slapped so hard...

I've really got to stop taking these tests

Your Score: Besotted Vagabond

7 Social Standing, -31 Malevolence, -5 Self-Mastery

Human detritus too pusillanimous and dull to menace anything more formidable than an unattended chicken-coup or linen line, you stagger from workhouse to workhouse as the local rate-payers wax weary of your unamended parasitism. Your contemptible existence shall end as the bulk of it was lived – in a ditch beside the road.

Link: The What Manner of Blackguard Test written by hermoderus on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

You know, green is my favorite color.

Have I mentioned that to you?

Ladies and gentlemen, a cheap shot

Yes, I'd be wood, too.

pharmaceutical diaries four

"The muses do not welcome novices, but simply open the door and silently point at the tightrope."

That's a quote from, I think, Jean Cocteau. But whoever said it didn't mention that the sisters, once they've got you up there, won't let you down without a really scary fall. Which is a way of asking myself, can I be happy, without...

There are times when the thought is as alien to me as life without sunshine.

But, one of the things that's got me in this loop which I'm trying to break out of is that I've defined the things that might make me happy through such a small window. Such a small, terribly, terribly unlikely window.

And maybe it wouldn't hurt so much if I couldn't just see it.

By which of course, I mean, see them.

Them's fighting words, Aisha

From the book Swerve by Aisha Tyler:

...a girl who was dressed adorably, in a tropical bathing suit and matching miniskirt, with a lunchbox as a purse (which went out around the time it became funny rather than cool to listen to bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees...

I must not have got the memo.

Comic BOOK. Not com-e-dy.

Jodie Foster has slammed 2005 film Sin City for being offensive and claimed she is shocked that people find the subject matter humorous.

At times like this, I just like to remind you that Jodie Foster is perfectly willing to stand up for the inexcusable behavior of homophobe (among other things) Mel Gibson, the last angry man. But a movie, and people's reaction to same, she finds offensive.

Sin City didn't exactly sing to me either, though I'll admit it looked amazing, and the comic book was one of my favorites. But come on.

The Inside Man actress insisted that she does not like viewing films that centre around the abduction and molestation of children, like that in the Robert Rodriguez film.

Or, like that in The Silence of the Lambs, Taxi Driver, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, and Flightplan. Just to name a few.

(Actually, if there was anything I thought Foster would find offensive watching Sin City, it would be when they killed the lesbian. Not that she herself is anything but heterosexual, of course).

Talking about the movie, which starred Bruce Willis, Clive Owen and Jessica Alba, Foster told USA Today: "That was so painfully cartoonish I was offended.

You suppose she hates the Roger Moore Bond movies, too?

Wild guess: Who here thinks Foster's idea of what "cartoonish" means doesn't extend much beyond Josie & The Pussycats? Actually...that's not such a wild guess, because:

"I don't know how you enjoy or laugh about a child abduction and molestation. What part of that sentence is funny?

Um, Jodie? Sin City? Not a comedy. Action/adventure/comic book movie.

"I can't get beyond that. I don't know if everyone understands the impact of that movie's message."

As Samuel Goldwyn once said:

"If you want to send a message, use Western Union."

Get me, I'm quoted on a Human League web site

The site, Made In Sheffield, quotes my review of the 2002 Secrets album in the discography section. Which rocks.

The Human League, as I may have mentioned before, are one of the great new wave bands. The joyful schizophrenia of Phil Oakey's vocal melodrama alternating with Joanne Catherall and Susanne Sulley's cooler singing; breathtakingly futuristic synths...over proper songs.

Songs like oh, say, this one:



Superb, wasn't it?

What do you mean synthpop is outdated?

Not around here, pal.

I sit and wait alone in my room...The walls are white and in the night The room is lit by electric light

I like to remember September 11, 2001 by remembering the song I put in my tape deck the first time I left the house afterwards. For a couple of years I did this by posting the lyric, even though, of course, the lyric couldn't give you the full effect.

This year, I found on YouTube a bit of Yaz[oo] performing the song, "In My Room," live in concert in 1982. (Note: the first four minutes or so are an unreleased instrumental, "Chinesse Detectives.")

"In My Room" here still isn't quite as good as the album version, because Alison Moyet gets a bit overheated in her singing. And especially as it's missing the recitation of "The Lord's Prayer" that runs throughought the song, ending with the haunting repetition of "God deliver us from evil."

But Vince Clarke's synths are as dreamy as ever, and this gives you a better idea.

Unroll the flag

Or as Bob Hope used to put it, "I just want you boys to see what you're fighting for, that's all."

Don't say this blog doesn't support the troops...

That's a TERRIBLE thing to say to someone who's just started taking anti-depressant medication

pharmaceutical diaries three

Not quite so tired today, so either I really was just tired yesterday or my system is quickly becoming adjusted to the pill. I do feel (or at least I think I feel) just a little bit "lighter," though.

ETA: Oh, and one weird thing happened that really didn't have anything to do with the pills but I wanted to mention it. Three different TV shows last night had characters named "Ben"...

The anti-Ted McGinley

A few years ago, the "Jump The Shark" website declared actor McGinley their patron saint. The theory being that when he joins the cast of a show (The Love Boat, Happy Days, Sports Night), that show is not long for this world.

In truth, a number of series have gone on for more than a few seasons with McGinley as either a regular or recurring member of the cast, not least among them Married...With Children and The West Wing. Nevertheless, his place in the firmament remains.

But tonight, I realized there is someone out there who seems to make it their business to appear on every smart "netlet" (meaning small network like the WB, UPN, CW, or ABCF) series.

I was watching the season finale of Greek, a series which has turned out to be really fun and worth watching. And then, rolling up before my eyes in the guest star credits, comes a name...a name I know well.

From Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Veronica Mars...Miss Charisma Carpenter.



Other fans of her previous "bad girl" work no doubt enjoyed watching one of Greek's resident sorority sisters try to out-bitch her as much as I did. Honey, it's just not going to happen.

Just as there must be heaven if there must be hell, if there must be a McGinley...

...there must also be someone whose very presence betokens a show that will prove worth looking forward to on any number of levels.

Charisma Carpenter is that someone.

And no, it's not just because she's so sexy.

ETA: This turned out to be a weird night for seeing people who used to be on Veronica Mars and/or Buffy...

First, I saw Percy Daggs III, who played Wallace on Mars, on a freaking Hot Pockets commercial. The CW must not have paid *any* money...

Then Alyson Hannigan is on the Conan O'Brien show, and I'm hit again with the realization that with her new hair color and cut she has made herself look like Jennifer Love Hewitt if she were a heroin addict.

Every redhead, man...

pharmaceutical diaries two

If nostalgia itself could be pressed into the grooves of a four-minute record, this is what it would sound like.

As for me, I've noticed that I do seem to be a little more tired after taking my Fluoxetine in the morning. But again, that could just be because I rarely sleep straight through all of the night.

No strangely weepy episodes, though feelings of empathy for Britney Spears are probably a bad sign of something wrong somewhere.

Questions for me to think about as I am better able to determine about which effects are real and which a "placebo effect" : Will taking these pills quiet my mind, and if it does, is that a bad thing?

Sobering quotation to remember: When the writer Alice Sheldon was asked about taking antidepressants, she said (this is approximate, remembered from a bio of her I skimmed recently):

"I want something to make me happy, and I fear (these pills) will only make me better able to endure misery."

PS: And I was just kidding about the sexual dysfunction...as far as I know.

Random Flickr Blogging 3701: My god. Bill O'Reilly was right.

It's D.E.B.S. : Pink Pistols division!

(source)

Greatest photo caption ever

Just go. You'll know it when you see it-unless they change it.

ETA after watching the Britney Spears MTV performance that's drawing all the scorn: I have a sinking feeling in my stomach it's about to get not funny to make jokes at her expense...so I better get this observation in now.

You know how Madonna went from fantastic uber-sex object to desperate housewife in a period of 25 years? Britney did it in less than 10.

But I kind of feel bad even saying that, because I can see the (online) papers are already taking shots at her for being "out of shape." Which, as usual, reveals their own misconceptions about what a woman's shape is.

I thought she still looked like she'd be fun to play with, he said euphmistically-but then, the way she looked has never been the problem. And that she seemed out of touch with her own performance cannot possibly come as a surprise if you've seen any part of her HBO "live" concert.

All this girl has ever been as a performer, is a femmebot. The only difference now is that the hardware has become corrupt.

But, watching this as best I could-and there were times when I felt compelled to close my eyes-I couldn't help thinking of a comment Jon Stewart made on The Daily Show when the Anna Nicole Smith Show started airing.

After showing an especially painful clip of Smith stumbing and falling, Stewart admonished the makers of her show, "Put down the camera...and help her."

Sire Records actively hates Book Of Love

At least, that's the only reason I can think of. Why else would they do this to a perfectly sweet little dance music band that so far as I know never did any harm to anyone?

This is making the video for one of the band's brighter songs, "Alice Everyday," only easily available in a techno remix version that sucks. Oh sure, the album version can be found, but exclusively on sites where you have to watch an advertisement first.

And as if that weren't bad enough, it's in some sort of equally suck-y upload that keeps freezing the images, turning it from a video into a slideshow.

Where's the love, that's what I want to know...where's the love...



(This has been another random observation of the '80s-or in this case early '90s-man)

this picture just because I like it

Spotted Fawn Lake before dawn, Yosemite National Park.

I found this via Tom's blog, where it's part of his Sunday Sierrablogging series.

As National Parks go, I've always wanted to visit Yellowstone. Why? One word: Wolves. I like wolves. (In a related story, guess what's back in Washington?)

I like this picture too...even if it is from Yosemite.

America's Got Talent, Canada's got low expectations

Second City's Next Comedy Legend, AKA "The show that only I watched," is getting a second year on the CBC.

...despite a soft inaugural run in the Tuesday 9 pm time slot, which yielded an average 170,000 viewers following its premiere on July 10. The season finale drew 151,000 viewers during the final week of summer holidays on Aug. 28, slightly less than its premiere number of 155,000. Legend peaked at 202,000 viewers on July 24

Do you realize what that means? That means that if The Nine, Veronica Mars, or Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip--all shows that deserved better chances than their viewership allowed-were on CBC, they'd be like...CSI.